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Joel Colomby, QMI Agency

Jul 12, 2014

, Last Updated: 2:39 PM ET

Once the Oakland A’s, in one fell swoop, grabbed arguably the top two available pitching trade targets a week ago, it left the rest of baseball’s contenders, including the New York Yankees with, well, Brandon McCarthy.

Being a veteran starter switching leagues, McCarthy will be a moderately attractive waiver wire target for AL-only owners willing to selectively ignore the fact that he arrived in the Bronx with a) a checkered injury past, and b) a 3-10 record and a 5.10 ERA this season with the Diamondbacks. And, of course, there is the whole NL-to-AL thing which could mean his stats won’t get much better having to face a DH every game.

McCarthy’s first game back, on Thursday in Cleveland, was somewhat checkered, as well. In 6.2 innings, he allowed four runs (though only one was earned, lowering his ERA to 4.80) on nine hits. That he did not allow a home run among the 10 fly balls he served up is somewhat newsworthy. According to FanGraphs, the right-hander’s HR/FB ratio of 20.0% in Arizona — yes, that’s one in every five fly balls leaving the yard — was the highest of his career, as was his HR/9 rate of 1.23.

Let’s just say that, if this trend continues once he starts pitching in Yankee Stadium, which has yielded the second most HRs in the majors this season, things are going to get ugly.